Reports and Submissions

[Olga Pavelko]

I've exported my form to a CSV file, but the data looks distorted. Please advise.

I cannot see any data from checkboxes, radio buttons and select fields in my submissions.

Please explain how the file upload option works in PHPForms?

[Olga Pavelko]

Q: I've exported my form to a CSV file, but the data looks distorted. Please advise.

A: To delimit data, PHPForms uses as a default value semicolon - ';'. You can change the delimiter in your MS Excel by following these steps:
   1. Open your Microsoft Excel
   2. Data -> Import external data -> Import data -> Open ->
      Then you'll see the delimiters used for the document

There's also a possibility to change the delimiter in the configuration file* in PHPForms in the file cnk-conf/phpforms.cfg. The line to be edited is:

CSV_FIELD_SEPARATOR=;

*NOTE: Please be careful while modifying the script source files as this may lead to the PHPForms failure.

[Olga Pavelko]

Q: I cannot see any data from checkboxes, radio buttons and select fields in my submissions. What's wrong?

A: Please make sure that you specify both Title and Value for each item in your checkbox (radio button/select) field. When you enter Title only, this will display the item name in the form, but won't send any value to email or database. You should enter Value, too, - this will be seen when this or that item is selected in the form and is submitted.

[Olga Pavelko]

Q: Could you explain how the file upload option works in PHPForms?

A: Yes, sure. Please read the explanations below.

Let's say we have a form with two fields:

1. Name
2. file upload

A user submits the form with his file uploaded:
1. My Name
2. cat.jpg

PHPForms does the following:

a. Receives and processes all data from the form.
b. Generates a unique ID of the data from the form, e.g. '6d57e019a0'.
c. Writes data from the form to the database and links each field with its ID:
id => field value

   1. 6d57e019a0 => My Name
   2. 6d57e019a0 => cat.jpg

d. When it comes to the field with an uploaded file, the script moves the file from a temporary folder (where you server puts them by default) to the folder called 'files' and renames the file.

The scheme for the file name is as follows:
<ID>.<file name>.<file extension>.<special character>

Thus, according to these rules your file has such a name:
6d57e019a0.cat.jpg.~


This scheme is applied to each form's submission.

Even if a hundred users upload files with the same file name, these files will represent a hundred different files linked with these hundred users.

When in the admin panel you view submissions, you see an 'original' file name, i.e. 'cat.jpg'. But if you open the link to the file, it will have a look similar to this:
http://www.domen_name/phpforms/admin.php?code=07&file_id=6d57e019a0

i.e. these are different files and PHPForms won't overwrite them in any case.


In case files are attached to email submissions (the feature is available in PHPForms Pro and PHPForms Members), their names remain the same as the original ones.